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Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

A. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
1. Hickory, North Carolina, is my hometown. I graduated from Hickory High School in Hickory, North Carolina. The mascot for this high school is the “Red Tornadoes.” I am not sure what year this high school adopted this mascot though the Wikipedia page for this high school does state that the high school in Hickory, North Carolina, was renamed “Hickory High School” in the 1940s. In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, a tornado sweeps the character Dorothy Gale and her dog, Toto, away from Kansas, and “Hickory” is the name of another character in that movie.

My mom passed away April 2, 2017 from a brain aneurism. The previous day I was at her house picking up my son. I dropped him off with my husband then went to work a graveyard shift at a coffee shop. The regular coffee drinkers were telling me about the guy that bought my old house which my mom gave to me but my husband and I returned to her so she could sell it. They told me he hanged himself in the backyard. I thought they were playing an April fools joke on me but they kept saying nope it’s not the first anymore. I got chills and was creeped out. I left work at 5am.

My name is Tully. Very weird name, I know. There was a movie that came out in 2018 called Tully and it instantly piqued my interest because I am literally the only person I know with such a name. I then looked into the movie, trying to find out why it had the same name as me and then discovered that the actress who played Tully, Mackenzie Davis, was born on my birthday. I was born on April Fool's, so not exactly one of the common ones and to this day it just boggles my mind.

As Ralph was leaving for some researches in the Harvard Library, his psychic girlfriend Betty told him that something important would happen at 2:00PM.
Indeed he stumbled walking down a stairway at that time, and Susan, who was walking up, came over to help him pick up his papers and books.
Grateful for this help from a stranger, Ralph suggested they go for coffee.

I talked to a friend of mine in Maryland and told her that I was going to Thailand on a trip. I told her that I owned a condo there and would be staying for several weeks. She said "Oh, that's great! My son is in Thailand now.

I talked to a friend of mine in Maryland and told her that I was going to Thailand on a trip. I told her that I owned a condo there and would be staying for several weeks. She said "Oh, that's great! My son is in Thailand now.

One morning I woke up with a strange feeling about an ex-wife that I had not seen or talked to in over 25 years. I had also heard almost nothing of her from friends, except that she had remarried. We had a short and not too loving of a marriage.....
I had a short dream about her one night, that I discussed with my wife when I awoke. I dreamed that I had seen her in public. She looked young, slim, fit and healthy in my dream (even though her chronological age should have been almost 60), and she was smiling at me.

When I met my wife (that's another story all together about how that happened!), we fell for one another immediately. It was like lightning bolts had struck us both.
I couldn't wait to get to know her and asked her out immediately. We went to dinner the day we met and started talking about family.
I was living in Maryland at the time (that is where we met) and she was working for a company in Arkansas.

This story actually encompasses two coincidences.
After I met my wife, we began to discuss family stories and I showed her some photos from my college days, including one of me in my cap and gown standing in front of the townhouse that I lived in while in school. My wife immediately recognized the townhouse development. She said "that's English Village in Memphis.

One day over 25 years ago at lunch meeting while speaking with my office manager, she asked me what sort of woman I pictured when I thought about what my "perfect wife" would look like. I was single at the time and hadn't dated for a long time after a disastrous previous marriage.
I described a very specific person with blue eyes, and a light, freckly complexion and long strawberry blonde hair. Also, a beautiful smile.